I really liked Emma and her boldness and how she called Charlie out so often. Kind of gave me that “Finally - Thank you!” feeling with so many rom-com characters in novels who refuse to communicate lol. 

That being said, it was a little surprising how much she fell for stuff later after being so perceptive in the beginning. But still loved the banter and character development. Great balance of lightheartedness and depth. 

Loved this one - loved both Sloan and Josh as characters, and the friend/supporting characters made it so much better. Super funny but also heartfelt and endearing

Cute and very Hallmark-Movie-ish. While it moved very fast, that’s sort of the nature of a Novella so it was fitting. Well written and endearing. 

 Really fascinating. I loved that I really had very little idea what was going to happen next or how. And the circle back in events or characters later was great too. I loved the friendships and how they had to work together. It wasn’t like one person saving the day every time. 

There were a couple things that didn’t make sense to me but I was also listening on the audio so maybe it would’ve been clear if I could go back and read parts again.

 I thought the writing was good and the storyline kept my attention. I really liked Cole and the kids a ton, but disliked Fallon. So often she acted self centered and flighty, and was usually so awful to Cole when quite often, the poor guy couldn’t catch a break. 

Well written, and I liked the characters. It was fast moving but I think that’s always the case for a short story/novella. 

I struggled with this one. As always with Abby Jimenez’s books, the writing and characters were terrific and I liked the look at infertility. But I really hate friends with benefits situations - someone is always heartbroken and feels used, excusing the situation as taking whatever they can get when the other won’t love them enough to meet them or let them go and instead keeps them in limbo. Really frustrating. The ending was good but not enough for me to not have a bad taste in my mouth on the rest. 

This was such a sad and difficult book - some of it relatable in the sense of motherhood and how easy it is to blame ourselves for things that go wrong, but a lot of the sadness and grief in the book is because the characters treated each other horribly thru most of the book. 

As the author states in the beginning, she wanted to paint a picture of how grief and guilt can permeate motherhood, and I think the book does that part well. You felt for Dorothy - and some of the other mothers at various times - and I think it was very realistic. 

However, so much of the book I struggled to like because I greatly disliked almost all the women in it. They were mean, petty, shaming, and just plain unkind. So much of everyone’s lives would have been different if they just offered a tiny bit of kindness and grace to each other, and just talked a bit (not gossiping but actually communicated) rather than making assumptions of the worst of each other. The same goes for Dorothy with Joseph also. Yes, the end started to turn around but I just wanted *someone* to be kind earlier than the last minute. It kind of ruined the book for me. 

Thanks to Netgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine. 

Well written and gripping. While there were a couple things that felt elementary and ignored in the plot and was a bit predictable, I really thought it dealt well with the emotions of Riley and the process of getting there was intriguing and hard to put down. 

I liked the concept of a sort of apocalyptic-catastrophe ridden world, but I think the delivery with this just fell a little short for me. 

The book is made up of the current situation of a flooded and weather-catastrophe world but with a lot of flashbacks as the only way for you to decipher how the characters got here. The flashbacks were sometimes alternating chapters and other times mid-stream in a current-status chapter. It made it super confusing to wade thru what was what, especially since even the flashbacks weren’t linear - they were more scattered memories of Nonie’s. 

The writing was also slow, monotone and scattered in and of itself, lacking a lot of description especially in transitions. I kept going back over and reading sentences multiple times either because I lost focus in some of the rabbit trails or because of the gaps in describing what was happening. I wasn’t even sure the status of flooding overall because that wasn’t clear either and was never really painted well enough for me to consistently envision. 

I really liked the concept and overall thought, the idea of helping others that the characters grew into eventually, and thoughts on hope. But overall, I struggled in the way it went there. 

Thanks to Betgalley for the advanced copy of this book. All opinions are mine.